Competitive swimming has been, and continues to be, a relatively popular sport. Indeed, names such as Johnny Weissmuller and Mark Spitz evoke memories of great swimmers of past eras. In the present era, the name Michael Phelps stands alone as perhaps the most popular swimmer, if not one of the most popular athletes worldwide. These swimmers attained their notoriety by being fast, if not the fastest, at multiple swim strokes. This does not occur by mere happenstance, but through consistent and strenuous training
One of the more popular training methods used by competitive swimmers is known as resistive swimming. That is, as a swimmer strokes, the swimmer's motion through the water is somehow resisted. Various devices have been used or proposed for implementing resistive swim training One of the more popular devices presently used resembles a parachute that is tethered to a swimmer. The parachute device extends behind the swimmer while in the water, and thus exhibits a resistive load with each stroke. This device does, however, suffer certain drawbacks. Namely, it may not exhibit a constant resistive load while it is being used. Moreover, the maximum resistive load it exhibits may not be variable.
Other devices have also been developed to provide resistive swim training. These devices, however, also suffer drawbacks. For example, with many of these devices a swimmer may experience a tug, a jerk, a catch, or loss of load during use.
Hence, there is a need for a resistive swimmer training device that exhibits a relatively constant resistive load while it is being used and/or does not result in the swimmer experiencing a tug, a jerk, a catch, and/or a loss of load during use. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs.